Sharing my thoughts based on what I read and came across in my life. Welcome you to my world

Followers

Monday, July 9, 2012

Veronika Decides to Die- Book Review

Veronika, a young girl in her twenties takes sleeping pills
bored to live the routine life and since she felt life is not worth living
since things turn out to be the same with no much difference. But in her suicide
note she writes that she has taken the decision to die since her country
Slovenia was not known to many. Unfortunately she survives
the attempt and gets landed in a mental asylum called Villete.

The chief Doctor says that she will survive only for two more
weeks since her heart got damaged and irreparable and she might have a stroke
anytime. She was not bothered about her
state initially, but later on she decides to leave the rest of her days by
doing whatever she likes and enjoys by playing Piano, masturbating openly in
front of schizophrenic male etc.

The story asks you live as you wish not being controlled by
mad rules of the society. The entire world is a mad world and we are living in
it. A short story told by another psychiatric patient Zedka reveals this
clearly

“Once upon a time, powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an
entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which the inhabitants
drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.

The following morning, the whole population drank from the
well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well
set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison. The
king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of
edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors,
however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s
decisions were absurd and resolved to take notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they
became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical
orders. The marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne,
but the queen stopped him, saying: ‘Let us go and drink from the communal well.
Then we will be the same as them.’

And that was what they did: The king and queen drank the water
of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at
once; now that the king was displaying such ‘wisdom’, why not allow him to rule
the country?

The country continued to live in peace, although its
inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king
was able to govern until the end of his days.”

That’s what is happening in todays world.

Paulo Coelho also makes a mock at the todays laws and rules, and
even blames God for creating a situation that Adam and Eve commit the mistake
of eating the forbidden fruit.

Another patient Maria decides to live in the asylum itself even
after cure since she feels the world outside to be even mad.

Veronika decides to die is a wonderful novel that one should
read. Veronika after living as per her wish finds life to be worth living and later
longs for living.

The following are some of the quotes from the book. Read ,feel
and understand that life is worth living but we are living in a wrong way

Below are the few quotes from the
book

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road
are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be
disappointed with what we encounter.”

“People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for
themselves.”

“If one day I could get out of here, I would
allow myself to be crazy. Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the
ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell
them to.”

“Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without
being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different.”

“You are someone who is different, but who
wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious
illness. God chose you to be different. Why are you disappointing God with this
kind of attitude?”

“Love fills everything. It cannot
be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has
nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river
and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the
spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant.”

“Haven't you learned anything, not even with
the approach of death? Stop thinking all the time that you're in the way, that
you're bothering the person next to you. If people don't like it, they can
complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem”

“Be like the fountain that overflows, not like
the cistern that merely contains.”

“Faith is not Desire. Faith is Will. Desires
are things that need to be satisfied, whereas Will is a force. Will changes the
space around us,...”

“Nothing
in this world happens by chance”

“People learn twenty-five percent from their
teacher, twenty-five percent from listening to themselves, twenty-five percent
from their friends, and twenty-five percent from time.”

“You have two choices, to control your mind or
to let your mind control you.”

“They say that extroverts are unhappier than
introverts and have to compensate for this by constantly proving to themselves
how happy and contented and at ease with life they are.”

“Everything, absolutely
everything on this earth makes sense, and even the smallest things are worthy
of our consideration.”

“I wanted to...feel
hatred and love, despair and tedium-- all those simple, yet foolish things that
make up everyday life but that give pleasure to your existence. If one day I
could get out of here, I would allow myself to be crazy, Everyone is indeed
crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they are crazy; they just
keep repeating what others tell them to.”

“Anyone who lives in her own world is
crazy. Like schizophrenics, psychopaths, maniacs. I mean people who are different
from others.'

Like you?'

“But time, as well as healing all wounds, taught me something strange
too: that it's possible to love more than one person in a lifetime. I
remarried. I'm very happy with my new wife, and I can't imagine living without
her. This, however, doesn't mean that I have to renounce all my past
experiences, as long as I'm careful not to compare my two lives. You can't
measure love the way you can the length of a road or the height of a building.”

“She would consider each day a
miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things
that could happen in each second of our fragile existences.”

“How many of us will be saved the pain
of seeing the most important things in our lives disappearing from one moment
to the next? I don't just mean people, but our ideas and dreams too: we might
survive a day, a week, a few years, but we're all condemned to lose. Our body
remains alive, yet sooner or later our soul will receive the mortal blow. The
perfect crime - for we don't know who murdered our joy, what their motives
were, or where the guilty parties are to be found...they too are the victims of
the reality they created.”

“I want to continue being crazy; living my
life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be.”

“Personal growth has its price, and she was
paying it without complaint.”

“Death frees from the fear of dying”

“LIVE. If you live, god will live with you. If
you refuse to run his risks, he'll retreat to that distant heaven and be merely
a subject for philosophical speculation.”